CXone SmartAssist Powered by Amelia provides intelligent virtual agents (IVA) for voice and chat interactions, as well as interactions on certain Digital Experience channels. SmartAssist virtual agents understand complex interactions and respond to them with human-level comprehension. They can replace live agents to handle customers' questions and solve problems.
CXone SmartAssist uses Amelia, an industry-leading AI bot solution. You can integrate SmartAssist with CXone using Studio scripts and Virtual Agent Hub.
To use SmartAssist with voice channels, contact your CXone Account Representative. Setup for voicebots happens outside of Virtual Agent Hub and the custom scripting needs require additional assistance.
Conversation Flow for Voice and Chat
After the conversation has started, the virtual agent analyzes the contact's utterances to understand the purpose or meaning behind what a person says. This is known as the contact's intent. When the intent is identified, the virtual agent sends an appropriate response to the contact.The method of sending a response depends on whether it's a text or a voice virtual agent:
- Voice:
Protocol used for signaling and controlling multimedia communication sessions such as voice and video calls. backchannel method of connection. - Text:
At the end of the conversation, the virtual agent sends a signal to the Studio script. It can signal that the conversation is complete, or that the contact needs to speak with a live agent. If the conversation is complete, the interaction ends. If a live agent is needed, the script makes the request. The contact is transferred to an agent when one is available.
Once the conversation is complete, post-interaction tasks can be performed, such as recording information in a CRM Third-party systems that manage such things as contacts, sales information, support details, and case histories..
Prerequisites
To use SmartAssist with CXone, you need:
- An account with Amelia.
- A fully configured and trained Amelia virtual agent.
Required Components
Using SmartAssist requires the following components:
- CXone: CXone must have a configured A way for contacts to interact with agents or bots. A channel can be voice, email, chat, social media, and so on. to use with the integration.
- Virtual Agent Hub in CXone: Virtual Agent Hub holds the configuration information for connecting to your virtual agent A software application that handles customer interactions in place of a live human agent. provider. Allows users to enter recorded prompts as text and use a computer-generated voice to speak the content. and transcription Written form of a voice or digital interaction, if your integration requires these services.
- Studio scripts: You need at least one script that includes a virtual agent Studio action. The action must be configured with the connection information for your virtual agent. The point of contact for the channel you're using with the integration must be configured to use this script.
- SmartAssist:
SmartAssist and Digital Channels
Custom Scripting Guidelines
Before integrating a virtual agent The meaning or purpose behind what a contact says/types; what the contact wants to communicate or accomplish, you need to know:
- Which script you want to add a virtual agent to.
-
The virtual agent Studio action you need to use.
- Where the Studio actions must be placed in your script flow.
- The configuration requirements specific to the virtual agent you're using.
- Any script-specific requirements for your virtual agent, including:
When nesting JavaScript within the JSON payload in Amelia virtual agents, use single quotes instead of escaping double quotes with a backslash ( \" ).
JSON structures must be "contentType": "dfoMessage", where the M in Message is capitalized. It won't work with a lower case m.
- How to complete the script after adding the virtual agent action. You may need to:
- Add initialization snippets as needed to the script using Snippet actions. This is required if you want to customize your virtual agent's behavior.
- Re-configure the action connectors to ensure proper contact flow and correct any potential errors.
- Use the OnReturnControlToScript branch to handle hanging up or ending the interaction. If you use the Default branch to handle hanging up or ending an interaction, your script may not work as intended.
- Complete any additional scripting and test the script.
Ensure that all parameters in the virtual agent actions you add to your script are configured to pass the correct data. The online help pages for the actions cover how to configure each parameter.
Additionally, ensure that you completely configure your virtual agent on the provider side. Verify that it's configured with all possible default messages. This includes error messages or messages indicating an intent has been fulfilled.
You may be able to obtain template scripts for use with virtual agent integrations from NICE CXone Expert Services. If you need assistance with scripting in Studio, contact your CXone Account Representative, see the Technical Reference Guide section in the online help, or visit the NICE CXone Community 
site.
Supported Studio Action for Text Virtual Agents
The TextBot Exchange action is for complex virtual agents or for when you need to customize the virtual agent's behavior from turn to turn. It monitors the conversation between the contact and the virtual agent A software application that handles customer interactions in place of a live human agent. turn by turn. It sends each utterance What a contact says or types. to the virtual agent. The virtual agent analyzes the utterance for intent The meaning or purpose behind what a contact says/types; what the contact wants to communicate or accomplish and context and determines which response to give. TextBot Exchange passes the response to the contact. When the conversation is complete, the action continues the script.
